News Posts matching "Macbook Air"

Apple's next entry to its pathbreaking ultra-portable notebook, the MacBook Air, will be a new 12-inch screen size version. As with every new MacBook Air release for the past two years, there's talk of a screen resolution jump to "Retina" standards. Apple is preparing other cutting-edge hardware updates.

To begin with, Apple will tap Intel's latest Core M "Broadwell-U" chip, an SoC that combines a dual-core "Broadwell" CPU with graphics, a dual-channel DDR3L IMC, and system agent onto a single chip, with an overall TDP of 15W. Apple is working on a new fanless cooling system for this chip. The other big feature-set upgrade is the USB 3.1 port, which Intel plans to launch with the system agent for its next processor platform. USB 3.1 doubles bandwidth to 10 Gbps, and steps up power-delivery, letting you charge your portable devices faster.

Other World Computing (OWC), a leading zero emissions Mac and PC technology company, confirmed at Macworld today its OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express 6G SSD is now available in a 480GB model size for the latest Apple MacBook Air 11.1" and 13.3" models which incorporate 6G (6Gb/s) data rate capabilities. The new Mercury Aura Pro Express 480GB model combines award-winning SandForce technologies and Tier 1/Grade A Toggle Synchronous NAND to deliver data rates up to 3x faster than factory 3G (3Gb/s) options and up to 8x the storage capacity of the factory's base 64GB SSD model. The new, built-in-the-USA Mercury Aura Pro Express SSD and other OWC Mercury SSDs will be shown in Other World Computing's booth #513, Moscone Centerl, at Macworld held in San Francisco this week.

Apple has become the biggest buyer of semiconductors in 2011, according to the latest data by market researcher Gartner. It pushed ahead of Samsung Electronics and HP. In 2012, Apple spent a total of US $17.3 billion in sourcing semiconductors as raw material in making its products. Gartner attributes Apples growth to solid sales of its iPhone and iPad brands, and the success of Macbook Air, which became a path-breaking product as it pretty-much defined the requisites of what go into making performance ultra-portable notebooks such as Intel's Ultrabook specification. Apple's semiconductor purchases grew from US $12.8 billion in 2010 to $17.3 billion in 2011, a 35 percent growth. At the second place is Samsung, with $16.7 billion in semiconductor purchases, a 9.2% growth.

Patriot Memory displayed its four main client bare-PCB SSD lines, the Industrial Series mSATA, Industrial Series half-height-mSATA, 1.8-inch half-height Industrial Series, and Mac Series SSD-stick. All three Industrial Series products are driven by PHISON controllers, and are available in MLC NAND flash and SLC NAND flash variants, each with its own capacity options. The mSATA MLC is available in capacities ranging from 16 GB to 128 GB, mSATA SLC from 4 GB to 32 GB; mSATA half-height MLC from 4 GB to 32 GB, mSATA half-height SLC from 1 GB to 8 GB.

The "Slim SATA" (half-height 1.8-inch) MLC is available in capacities ranging from 16 GB to 128 GB, and its SLC variant is available in capacities ranging from 4 GB to 32 GB. Moving on, Patriot has SSD sticks for Macbook Air, and other Apple devices that support this form-factor, these sticks are driven by SandForce SF-228x controllers, feature MLC NAND flash memory, and are available in capacities of 120 GB, 240 GB, and 480 GB.

Other World Computing (OWC), a leading zero emissions Mac and PC technology company, announced today the industry’s first 6G SSD upgrade for the 2011 Apple MacBook Air 11.1" and 13.3"models. The new OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express 6G SSDs combine award-winning SandForce technologies and Tier 1/Grade A Toggle Synchronous NAND to deliver data rates that are more than 3x faster and capacities that are up to 4x greater than factory available SSD options. Currently available in two sizes--120GB and 240GB--the new 6Gb/s SATA 3.0 Revision models continue OWC’s position as the only alternative to factory SSD options for the 2010-2011 MacBook Air. 3G speed models from OWC are also available in capacities of up to 480GB.

Mach Xtreme is among those memory vendors seeing a market in consumer mSATA SSDs, a component reserved to OEMs for use on notebooks, before Intel launched the Smart Response technology with its Z68 platform, paving way for motherboards with mSATA slots that hold the SSD used for Smart Response caching. On display at Computex is Mach Xtreme's SandForce SF-1200 driven mSATA SSD that offers capacity of 60 GB. MachXtreme also showed off its Apple Macbook Air upgrade SSD, that consumers can opt for upping capacity and transfer rates, over the bundled SSD.

Other World Computing (OWC), a leading zero emissions Mac and PC technology company, today announced its OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express Solid State Drive is now shipping in an industry largest 480GB capacity for all 2010 Apple MacBook Air models. First announced at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show this past January, the OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express line now offers up to 4X greater capacity and up to 68% faster real-world performance than factory available options. This new 480GB model introduction continues OWC's position as the only aftermarket SSD manufacturer for the 2010 MacBook Air and the most comprehensive U.S. manufacturer of industry leading SandForce processor based SSDs available today with OWC Mercury Pro brand SSD models available for nearly every Mac and PC produced over the past decade.

Other World Computing (OWC), a leading zero emissions Mac and PC technology company, announced today its new Mercury Aura Pro MBA Solid State Drive (SSD) line, the first high performance SandForce processor based SSD available for all 2008-2009 Apple MacBook Air models. Announced today at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, this new product introduction establishes OWC as the most comprehensive U.S. manufacturer of industry leading SandForce processor based SSDs, with OWC Mercury Pro brand SSD models available for nearly every Mac and PC produced over the past decade. OWC will be demonstrating the new Mercury Aura Pro MBA and other first-to-market OWC Mercury Pro SSDs at CES Booth #3935, LVCC, North Hall.

Portable storage has never looked so good with the new G-Technology G-DRIVE slim from Hitachi GST. Just in time for the holidays, and making a perfect external storage companion to the Apple Macbook, MacBook Pro or Macbook Air, the new G-DRIVE slim external hard drive gives users 320GB of storage and ubiquitous USB 2.0 connectivity in an amazingly slim form factor. The new drive is designed from the inside out to emulate G-Technology’s known quality and style for the Apple Mac market, providing simple, reliable and affordable external storage for college students, business professionals and consumers on the go.

The new G-DRIVE slim leverages Hitachi GST’s rugged, 7mm Travelstar Z5K320 drive, making it the thinnest, 2.5-inch external hard drive in the world. With its diminutive footprint – just a mere 128.6 mm (L) x 82 mm (W) by 9.9 mm (H), – sleek design and recyclable aluminum enclosure, users now have a stylish drive to help them move, work and play with their digital content. Lightweight and compact, weighing in at approximately 144g (5 oz), users can easily carry up to 80 hours of high-definition video, 320 hours of standard video, 114 movies, 80,000 songs or 160 games wherever they go.

Months after bringing to the world an updated lineup of iMacs, Mac Pro workstations, and Macbooks barring the Macbook Air, Apple has finally given its due, with a new updated Macbook Air. Apple's ultra-thin, and ultra-light notebook is now available in two sizes, 13-inch and 11-inch. Internally, there are no radical changes. It still uses a Core 2 Duo, clocked at 1.40 or 1.60 GHz for the 11-inch and 1.80 GHz or 2.13 GHz for the 13-inch version with 3 MB (11-inch) or 6 MB (13-inch) of L2 cache , 2 GB of DDR3 memory (with the option to choose 4 GB), and NVIDIA GeForce 320M integrated graphics. Unlike with the older generation, the new Macbook Air uses SSDs on all available variants, it's hardwired on its motherboard (apparently to minimize space), and comes in capacities of 64~128 GB (11-inch) or 128~256 GB (13-inch).

It is over the hood that most changes are made. The unit is now thinner at 0.11-0.68 inch (0.3-1.7 cm), lighter at 1.06 kg for the 11-inch and 1.32 kg for the 13-inch. Apple claims to have learned a lot from iPad's design. It's given the new Macbook Air a larger glass trackpad that uses high-precision multi-touch surface used in Apple's touch products, which enhance the user-interface beyond just doing the work of a pointing device. The screen used has high pixel density, with 1440 x 900 pixels for the 13-inch and 1366 x 768 pixels for the 11-inch model. A high-resolution Facetime web-camera is fitted. The Macbook Air provides all the software capabilities of any other Mac, the Mac OS X Snow Leopard OS and iLife are bundled. Battery life has also gone up, 5 hours for the 11-inch and 7 hours for the 13-inch. Prices start at US $999 for the 11-inch model and $1,299 for the 13-inch one, and go up depending on the optional components chosen.

Intel has everything going its way when it comes to mobile computing, and the processors it sells that power notebooks and netbooks across every segment of the market. Intel uses the common classification of portable computers (consumer segment), using sizes and form-factors to differentiate mainstream notebooks, performance notebooks, ultra-thin notebooks, "larger" sub-notebooks (netbooks), and common entry-level netbooks. To cater to each of these, Intel made things easier by coming up with platforms (sets of processor and chipset combinations), a market approach both Intel and AMD have been using recently.

Starting with mainstream, and performance notebooks (traditionally above 14-inches in size, above US $1200 in price), Intel has the Calpella platform, that marks the entry of Nehalem architecture to the mobile scene. This is slated for 3Q 2009. Intel will simultaneously lower the prices of its current Montevina platform, to let inventories digest. Major hardware manufacturers are preparing their "launch-vehicles" for the Calpella platform, which will make it in time for Q3 2009.

Currently leading AMD in every market-segment of CPUs, Intel is planning to take on the Athlon Neo series CPUs, a set of low-wattage CPUs specifically designed for the ultrathin form-factor notebooks. Intel's Athlon Neo competitor would take shape from its current ultra low-voltage (ULV) processors that feature in products such as the Apple Macbook Air.

The processors will use the 22 sq mm packaging. Intel's lineup is expected to include ULV chips with rated TDPs as low as 10W, against AMD's Athlon Neo chips offering rated TDPs as low as 15W. There is no word on the availability of these chips, although with Athlon Neo based products coming out only in Q2 2009, that still leaves Intel at least three months to prepare its new ULV chips.Source: TechConnect Magazine

Computing giants such as Dell and HP are on an expansion mode with their product lineups. "Adamo" has been quite a buzzword in the gadget circles, which started off with rumors of it being Dell's competition to the Apple Macbook Air. Naturally, it is expected to have the one USP the Macbook Air holds: it's slim notebook form-factor. The advantage Adamo gives is that it happens to be PC, coming with a proper PC operating system installed.

The rumor materialized with a NY Times BITS blog post which showed an extract from UptownLife.net which read:

Rumor has it that Dell is coming out with a computer called Adamo that will rival the MacBook Air. At press time, the company was keeping the product tightly under wraps, but PC users rejoice - word on the street is that something cool is coming your way

All hypes and myths about Apple being the most secure OS, or at least being the last OS to be hacked may have been busted by Charlie Miller on Thursday when he managed to hack an Apple MacBoock Air for 2 minutes flat during the CanSecWest security conference's PWN 2 OWN hacking contest. Show organizers offered a Sony Vaio, Fujitsu U810 and the MacBook as prizes, saying that they could be won by anybody at the show who could find a way to hack into each of them and read the contents of a file on the system, using a previously undisclosed "0day" attack. Nobody was able to hack into the systems on the first day of the contest when contestants were only allowed to attack the computers over the network, but on Thursday the rules were relaxed so that attackers could direct contest organizers using the computers to do things like visit Web sites or open e-mail messages. Miller, best known as one of the researchers who first hacked Apple's iPhone last year, took advantage of the new privileges given by the jury and within 2 minutes, he directed the contest's organizers to visit a Web site that contained his exploit code, which then allowed him to seize control of the computer. He was the first contestant to attempt an attack on any of the systems, and that was enough for him to win quick $10,000 and perhaps show how secure the MacBook Air was. Continue reading the full story with more details here.Source: security.itworld.com

CNET News.com has learned that Lenovo and Fujitsu are in the process of putting together systems based on the special Core 2 Duo chip that Apple is using in the MacBook Air. The new laptops should be out shortly, according to sources familiar with the companies' plans, and will give customers a chance to see what the rest of the PC industry can do with the ultra-low-power chips. Both manufacturers did not comment on the story. Apple asked Intel to design the special Core 2 Duo chip last year as it was putting together the design that would become the MacBook Air. The chip fits into a package that's significantly smaller than the standard Intel notebook chip, and it uses less power than the standard Core 2 Duo, allowing it to fit into the slim MacBook Air without melting the inside of the package or eating the battery.Source: CNET News

Here's one more MacBook Air contender coming from Toshiba, actually two more: the Portégé R500 11J and 11I. The 11J, with 64GB of SSD and no optical drive, is clearly looking for a fight with the Mac Book Air. Toshiba even claims to have the thinnest and lightest laptop in the world (779g and 25.5mm). Specifications for this model include: Core2 Duo ULV U7600, 2GB DDR2 667MHz memory, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950, Wi-Fi (802.11 a/g/n), Bluetooth, 3G+/HSDPA and price range of 2500 €.

There’s been a barrage of Apple stories today, but here’s one that people won’t be quite so pleased to hear: the battery in Apple’s new MacBook Air will not be user replaceable, much like the iPod and iPhone. Apple has clarified the issue, saying that the price of a replacement will be $129, just like the MacBook Pro battery, and installation will be free. This shouldn’t be too much of a problem for most users given that the battery will probably be fairly durable and the notebook does boast five hours of battery life, but would cause a slight inconvenience of having to send the machine off to Apple if it does need replacing, and would prevent people from using a backup battery.Source: Engadget

Apple just unveiled their new ultraportable notebook, called the Macbook Air. It features a 1.6 GHz Core 2 Duo, which can be upped to 1.8 GHz at a price. There is no optical drive, but a 80GB 4200 RPM hard drive or an optional 64GB SSD drive. The battery should last around 5 hours. The front is just a mere 0.16 inches high, while the back tops out at 0.76 inches. The keyboard is full size and features the same layout as on the new Mac Pro keyboard. It is backlit and has a black finish. The optional USB 2.0 Superdrive is available for $99 USD.